The Pirate Bay shifts domain again

So The Pirate Bay’s domain name has moved yet again, this time to Ascension Island, aka a volcano in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean.

As previously reported, the always controversial file-sharing website has had to alter its main domain a few times this year already, because each time it picks a new country in which to register its web address, the entertainment industry lobbies or litigates to have the domain suspended, because of that rampant copyright infringement thing.

Either way, the Bay has done a sneaky switch to Ascension Island’s domain registry, making the site’s primary domain thepiratebay.ac. Though as the South Atlantic island is a British Overseas Territory, meaning the UK entertainment industry will no doubt step in with immediate effect, a spokesperson for the Bay has told Torrentfreak that this is just a temporary fix while a domain is set up in Peru. Exotic.

Of course, ironically, because in the UK, and several other countries now, the official Pirate Bay domain is blocked by ISPs complying with a court order, such domain changes will go unnoticed by many file-sharers, who access the site via proxies that will stay updated. Indeed, the shift does the Bay a temporary favour, because as of this morning the ISPs were still to catch up and apply the webblock to thepiratebay.ac. And either way, the second listing on a Google search of “The Pirate Bay” is a working proxy site.

Which is why, even though the labels and movie studios will continue to demand thepiratebay domains be suspended and blocked, and proxy sites be blocked too, occasional friend Google will remain enemy number one amongst the anti-piracy brigade as 2014 dawns.